


Queer Superhero Prom

by Rly



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Ultimates
Genre: F/F, Feels, Fluff, Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 17:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17430350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rly/pseuds/Rly
Summary: Carol and Monica bail on a boring party and hang out in a half-finish space station. They get talking about what might've happened if they'd been teenagers together, and then trying out a bit of that.





	Queer Superhero Prom

**Author's Note:**

> [So I had a great idea and then got derailed and this probably will not get updated for a long time, sorry!]

Carol put on her uniform and went to the schmoozy party, shook hands, said the right things, breathed a massive sigh of relief when the Wakandan delegation showed up because everyone wanted to talk to T’Challa and she could escape onto the balcony.

She’d been out there long enough to drink half a glass of wine when Monica joined her. Monica had a headband the bright white of her uniform holding back her dreads and a tailored jacket in black and white that evoked the Spectrum uniform, over a black shirt and pants.

“You’re ignoring the party,” Monica said, leaning her elbows on the balcony railing.

“So are you.”

“I schmoozed. Whole minutes. And the Dora have this; Ayo’s hilarious when she’s not on duty. Where are you thinking of flying away to?”

“That obvious? I want to see how work’s going on the new space station.”

“I’ll meet you there,” Monica said.

“Show off,” Carol grumbled, trying to suppress a grin. Monica could travel at the speed of light, a whole lot faster than anyone else in the Ultimates, or anywhere else that Carol knew of.

“Hey, I’m still hungry and, yeah, I can leave your ass in the dust, so you’d better get flying, Captain.”

Carol flew to the station and around it, walked through the halls that’d been finished to the observation deck. This deck wrapped half around the structure, with vast windows looking out into space. Breathable air had been piped into the finished parts for the workers doing the small details, but the living quarters hadn’t been finished, so the station was empty this Saturday night.

The observation deck didn’t have chairs yet, but Carol found a dropcloth and folded it like a blanket big enough for two, lay back on it staring at the stars.

Monica dropped down next to her, setting a bag between them. “I got most of a shrimp plate, some french bread, dips and spreads, and a bottle of wine that looks better than most of the party fare.”

She opened the wine and poured into two glass jars. Carol raised her eyebrows.

“Went by my house for glasses and napkins. I’m not using that plastic, bleached crap. Not interested in _only_ saving the Earth from external threats.”

“Amen.”

They ate and updated about the day-to-day, then lay back on the blanket, picnic-style, to watch the stars.

After a while, Monica said, “You’ll never believe who I ran into. Silvie … wait, did I never tell you this?”

“What?”

“About the time she kissed me when we were fourteen.”

“Monica! You did _not_ tell me this. Spill.”

In recent years, they’d kept each other up on their respective romantic/sex lives but there was a lot of history they hadn’t gone over. Monica tended to have relationships while Carol tended to sleep around—when she could manage it without the whole world finding out. At this point she’d probably hooked up with more aliens than humans.

As far as Carol knew, Monica mostly dated men but sometimes women, though those didn’t seem to last as long, and Carol had finally caught on, after so many years, that while Spectrum could fight the most powerful entities in the galaxy, Monica still struggled with social pressure—and that walking around in the world as one half of an intimate relationship was different for her, as a black woman, in ways Carol couldn’t imagine.

Plus it’s not like Carol was screamingly out about her romantic/sexual life. Most of the time she buttoned up, muscled through all the publicity insanity, and then flew off somewhere that no one knew her to get her needs met—except that didn’t really meet needs so much as bleed off enough pressure that she could keep muscling through.

“Honestly, not that much to tell,” Monica said. “We went to school together. She lived nine blocks away, which I know because I walked it a ton. I wanted to be around her all the time. Usual teen stuff: sitting close, cuddly sleepovers, trying on each other’s clothes. And one day she wanted to pretend we were girlfriend and boyfriend, to practice for when we’d really have boyfriends. We were both good girls, no real dating at fourteen. I said we should take turns being the boyfriend, so we’d both get practice.”

“Did you?” Carol asked.

“Yeah. It wasn’t even awkward. She was a good kisser. I wanted to do it a lot more, but that was it for her. She started dating a guy that summer.”

“You?”

“Not for years.”

The stars moved lazily past the window as the station orbited the planet. Carol asked, “Mon, you think you’d have dated a girl back then if you could?”

“Yep, but, you know, only white people were gay.”

Carol snorted. “Not in my family. The only gay people were a bunch of hippies out in San Francisco.”

“Yeah, but they were _white_ hippies.”

“They were. I’m sorry you didn’t get to date a girl in high school.”

“I was more into investigations,” Monica said. “I wanted to set up a forensics lab in the basement. Mom wanted me in the Air Force, but it wasn’t all about the speed for me. I know it’s more than that, but what I loved about Harbor Patrol was the variety, the way you can look at a ship in the water and if you do the math right, you know if it’s carrying extra cargo that it hasn’t declared. Or how you can see from what’s on deck if it’s been places it shouldn’t have been.”

“Do you miss that?” Carol asked. “We could get more investigation missions.”

She wanted Monica to get anything and everything she wanted. Monica was one of the best people in the galaxy, not because she tried to be super perfect all the time, because of the opposite—she could be heroic and practical, funny, thoughtful all at the same time.

Monica said, “Nah, I like figuring out galactic potential disasters. Plus I have projects I work on in my spare time with Shuri and her team. Keeps me sharp.”

“I’ll bet. … What was it like, kissing that girl so young?”

Ever since Monica had brought up being a kid and kissing a girl, Carol had been growing increasingly aware of how close they were on the blanket, both looking up at the curving window. Carol had her hands behind her head and she could’ve stretched out an arm and wrapped it around Monica’s shoulders.

Now Monica rolled on her side, propped her head on her hand and asked, “When was your first kiss, Carol?”

“Eighteen, at prom, and it was okay, but he had on enough Old Spice to choke a horse.”

“Wow, and I thought I was the good girl.”

“I’m a little older, Mon, and you know military families.”

“Kept us out of trouble at least.”

“How much trouble would we have gotten into anyway?” Carol mused. “We both wanted careers more than boyfriends … or girlfriends, if we could’ve had those.”

Monica rolled onto her back again, and said, quietly, “I’d have kissed you at fourteen.”

The stars blazed outside the window. The wine made Carol drowsy and it made Monica’s words go right to her gut, fizzling and sparking.

“Well, I’d for sure have kissed you back if I wasn’t ten years older,” Carol said.

“I meant if we were both fourteen, girl. If we went to high school together.”

“You come over one day and say we should practice being boyfriend and girlfriend?” Carol asked, not daring to look over at Monica, but pretty sure she’d see her friend grinning back if she did.

“Nah, this is a parallel universe where we’re the same age, so let it be one where everyone’s cool about queerness,” Monica said. “I ask you to help with my astrophysics homework, even though I’m pretty good at it.”

“Because you saw me running track and were mesmerized by my very long, white legs?”

Monica laughed. “That has the ring of truth to it. I’m sure that’s why I asked for help on my homework. You do have ridiculously long legs.”

“Do we go to prom together? Who wears the tux?” Carol asked.

“We both do. Mine’s the traditional black and white and yours is teal because you’re going through a phase.”

“I am not! I would never wear teal!”

“Head. To. Toe.”

“Take it back!” Carol half sat up and grabbed Monica’s wrist.

Monica pushed up on her back hand and pulled. Carol fell forward and caught herself by putting her hand on the blanket on Monica’s other side. Monica had slipped back, almost lying flat again, Carol nearly on top of her. Their chests inches apart, their mouths closer. Carol could only focus on a stretch of Monica’s soft cheek, on her barely parted lips.

She didn’t know which of them closed that gap, but Monica’s lips pressed hers. Kissing her felt exactly like Carol had expected kissing a woman made from compressed energy would feel: sparks and shocks traveling down her body, collecting and building under her skin, making her more luminous than all the stars outside the window.

Until she realized she’d forgotten how to kiss and breathe at the same time and had to pull away, gasping for breath while trying to look casual about it.

“You going to ask me to prom?” Monica asked, grinning.

“Uh yeah," Carol said, knowing she had a ridiculous grin on her own face. "Just as soon as there’s some queer superhero prom and you give in on that teal business.”

“Let me think about that last part.”

Monica lay back on the blanket, smiling up at the stars, and listed other unsuitable tuxedo colors and patterns. Carol settled next to her again, thinking: _does she really have no idea how much I want to do that again?_


End file.
